Lost and Found: Sufjan's 50 States Project
Matt Farley could write Carrie & Lowell, but Sufjan Stevens could never finish the 50 states project
Sufjan’s Steven’s album, Reflections, is released today, and I thought I would share a reflection of my own.
Remember when indie rock turned into a whimsical, state-by-state geography lesson? Sufjan Stevens was our banjo-plucking pied piper, traversing the map while delivering two outlandishly baroque masterpieces about specific U.S. states. First came Michigan. Then Illinois. Then Illinois again, sort of. And then—well, we’re still waiting.
Michigan and Illinois seemed to unite the whole cynical swath of music lovers: Here were two kid-friendly, parent-friendly, grandparent-friendly concept albums capable of topping Pitchfork’s year-end lists and delighting your history teacher all at once. Yet by the last decade’s end, the singer’s overarching conceit had been mysteriously abandoned: Sufjan Stevens did not write and record an album about all 50 states. He didn’t even make it out of the Great Lakes region. No wonder millennials have trust issues.
If you grew up in a city in the United States, chances are this guy has written a song about your hometown. Known by many names, singer-songwriter Matt Farley is also known as The Guy Who Sings About Cities & Towns. Described on his site as “the best and most prolific songwriter of all time,” Farley has undertaken the task of writing songs about every state.
The project started when Farley and his songwriting partner Tom Scalzo were releasing albums as Moes Heaven and realized the few funny songs they included on albums were the ones getting the most downloads.
“In 2008, I started exclusively doing songs like that. Albums about food, animals, celebrities, and potty humor songs. In 2012, I started the city songs. I decided to do at least 50 cities per state, so I’d end up covering smaller places that rarely get entire songs dedicated to them.”
Now, with 46 states covered, Farley told us he expects to be done with all 50 by July this year. The songwriter himself has been to 48 US states and uses the wisdom of Wikipedia for the places he hasn’t yet visited.
With songs like “A Pretty Good Song About Chesterfield,” “Oh Yeah, Yonkers Yonkers Yonkers!” and “Exhilarating Song About Methuen, Mass”, you may be able to find a song about your own hometown, city or state. Farley’s own personal favorite is “Oh Yeah! Aurora, Illinois.”
Joey Clift never considered himself to be much of a Sufjan Stevens fan. But during the early weeks of the pandemic, the 36-year-old comedian and television writer recalled an idea he’d been weighing for years: What if he recruited an assortment of people to record albums about all 50 U.S. states, finishing the job Stevens had once vowed—and famously failed—to complete?
Clift had been introduced to Stevens’ work in 2005, when the singer’s breakout album Illinois was as inescapable as capri pants. Even though Clift didn’t love the music, he was drawn into the imaginative spectacle of the 50 States Project and the possibility that Stevens would eventually make a record about his home state of Washington. Clift sat on the idea for years until this past March, when the world stopped, and he got laid off from his job writing for the Quibi show Useless Celebrity History. “I remember driving home my last day on the job,” he says, “thinking about how any creative person is probably unemployed and looking for stuff to do.”
The resulting stockpile of music—which Clift dubbed “Our Fifty States Project”—lives on a mountainous SoundCloud page. The songs skew silly and parodic: for Florida, a sordid ode to the mythical “Florida Man”; for Louisiana, a ripping metal song sung by an alligator; for Vermont, a novelty rap performed by a Bernie Sanders impersonator. But there are also glimpses of vulnerability, earnest regional pride, and an overarching sense of community, all filtered through DIY aesthetics.
Listen to a song from the new album below.